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Editorial: Motorists get 'Thunder'-struck

To law-abiding motorists, a police roadblock is an annoyance that adds a few minutes to a trip.

But to someone who has had too much to drink, is running from the law or is driving a stolen car, those flashing blue lights up mean the end of the line.

On Tuesday, law enforcement officials released some impressive-sounding totals related to the ongoing Operation Thunder, the ramped-up police presence on Savannah-area roadways that started about 45 days ago. During that period, police issued more than 1,700 citations during the multi-agency crackdown. The bulk of them — 630 tickets, or 37 percent — for speeding. Next came “other citations” (510), followed by citations for not wearing seat belts (256), children not properly secured (187) and driving under the influence (77).

But the 30 roadblocks netted more than speeders, seat belt violators and motorists accused of impaired driving.

Police nabbed seven fugitives. Nineteen people were busted on felony charges. Another 25 people were arrested on drug-related offenses.

And that’s even after word of the roadblocks spread like wildfire on Facebook and other social media — almost immediately after police set them up.

But to some degree, writing a lot of tickets isn’t the main point of this investment in public resources. Changing dangerous behavior is.

“People don’t need to get behind the wheel of a car after they’ve been drinking, because they put others’ lives in danger,” Terry Enoch, interim assistant chief of the Metro police department, said.

“And so this is an education campaign, an awareness campaign, and we’re going to continue to be out there to make our roads safe. We don’t want to lose another life due to a reckless driver or someone behind the wheel who shouldn’t be there or ... a child not in the correct safety restraints.”

Amen to that. A common complaint among many Savannah-area motorists is the number of poor drivers on local roadways. Speeders, slow-pokes in the passing lane, kids crawling all over the passenger compartments, drivers apparently sending text messages and suspected drunks behind the wheel are all-too-common road hazards. Unfortunately, the saying is true: There’s never a cop around when you need one.

Enter Operation Thunder.

This operation is a joint effort between the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and Metro police. These police saturation projects have been conducted elsewhere in Georgia — but with different results in some cases.

Take Augusta. According to the Augusta Chronicle, Thunder officers there made a whopping 216 DUI arrests between Feb. 14 and April 28 this year. But they issued just 56 speeding citations. That’s the opposite experience of Savannah so far.

And how effective are these checkpoints?

A group of Emory University graduate students studied that question. Their report, released this spring, concluded that “there were no statistically significant differences in collision rates between mobilized counties and comparison counties” over the short-term. But for some reason, the rates dropped after 90 and 180 days in counties where the operations occurred.

They just didn’t know why.

Clearly, more data analysis is needed.

In the meantime, Savannah-area motorists are well-advised to follow the law. Operation Thunder still has 45 days to go.